Horror Remakes

Brad Fuller wrote about the Nightmare on Elm Street reshoot on the Bloody-Disgusting Platinum Dunes blog the other day, but left fans in the dark about what exactly is being reshot. "I don't want to get specific about what we are shooting, but suffice to say we heard you. After you've seen the film we can discuss what was reshot," said Fuller. Reshoots aren't always a big deal, but overall I'm nervous about the hype on this remake. Fuller is in full defense mode, early reviews were menza mez and The Friday the 13th remake wasn't horrible, but I'm not a fan of the other stuff PD has been putting out.

So, for today I'm just going to forget all about this NOES news and remember the man behind it all--Freddy Krueger. Leave your remake worries and woes behind and let's all enjoy some songs about Fred. After the jump are a few videos by friends of Freddy who think he's the cat's pajamas and wanted to spread the love.

Stormtroopers of Death (S.O.D.) is a N.Y.C. based hardcore/thrash band who has enjoyed a career of questionable lyrics intended to piss people off. The song Freddy Krueger is from their Speak English or Die album, part of which was MTV's Headbanger's Ball theme for a while. Reuben is a UK, mustache happy alt rock group whose 2004 song Freddy Kreuger (intentional spelling) reached #53 on UK charts. I've also included a little ditty a fan boy wrote for his lady friend to scare her. Aw--love. Lyrics on YouTube if interested. Last but not least, I didn't forget about Dokken, the metal band who recorded a song for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, called (you guessed it!) Dream Warriors. Respect the hair.

Reviews were mixed for the Platinum Dunes remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street after a round of test-screenings. Additional scenes will be shot for the film and require additional cast members according to CHUD.

The full details are posted on the Spoiler TV website, but you can check them out after the jump. So far, the new scene we know about is set at a diner where Nancy works. There's no telling if this additional and seemingly minor scene will clear up any confusion in terms of plot but apparently the studio feels its necessary.

A Nightmare on Elm Street, directed by Samuel Bayer, stars Jackie Earle Haley (Freddy), Kyle Gallner, Thomas Dekker, Rooney Mara, Kellan Lutz, Katie Cassidy, Connie Britton and my boyfriend Clancy Brown. Freddy Krueger is a serial child molester who is murdered and then returns as a crispy critter to terrorize teens in their dreams. The film opens in theaters April 30, 2010.

As many others with our celebrated obsession are apt to do, I successfully watched a horror film every day last month in honor of Halloween. This task of course required me to double my efforts to improve upon my one-horror-film-every-two-days agenda that I follow every other month of the year. I love this genre with an ardent fervor, but I am sorry to report that there are holes in my knowledge just like there are in anyone else's (except for Weinberg of course). For example, this project allowed for my first viewing of American Werewolf in London; freaking transcendent experience. But I am just as excited to explore the uncharted seas of schlock as I am to face down the legends.To wit, I offer you the much maligned House of Wax.

Let me start by reassuring you that I harbor no delusions that House of Wax is the greatest horror film ever made. Its flaws are visible from space. But I remember when this film hit our shelves at Blockbuster, back when I was but a counter jockey with aspirations of becoming the mechageek I am today, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Two obstacles kept me from burning a free rental on this film: I had not seen the original with Vincent Price and the remake film starred the harbinger of all things evil known as Paris Hilton.

(Old-school reprint from Cinematical. Happy Halloween!)

House of Wax, starring Paris Hilton. The Fog, starring Wooden Superman. The Amityville Horror, starring Van Wilder.

Yep, it's tough to be an old-school hardcore horror fan these days, what with all the really atrocious remakes that keep flopping off of the studios' assembly lines. (If you paid money to see When a Stranger Calls, you're either one devoted horror fan -- or a really bored high school kid.) But since the Horror Fan is nothing if not loyally optimistic, we trudge off to each successive remake with a small kernel of hope -- maybe this one won't suck the proverbial egg. So while it's perfectly logical for a passionate horror geek to throw up his/her hands and shriek "Ack! Horror remakes! They all suck!!" -- the simple truth is that they don't all suck. The good ones are just pretty darn few and far between.

I'm always willing to give a remake the benefit of the doubt, even if it's a remake of an already fine film. That said, if you haven't already seen George A. Romero's 1973 film and you'd like to go into Breck Eisner's remake of The Crazies with as blank a slate as possible, you'd do well to not watch this trailer for the upcoming title from Overture Films starring Radha Mitchell (yay, Silent Hill!), Joe Anderson (yay, The Ruins!), Danielle Panabaker (yay, F13 Remake!), and Timothy Olyphant (yay, "Deadwood"!).

Don't get me wrong, Eisner's take on Romero's story of paranoia and loss of control looks to have nailed the eeriness that spreads across a small town in the Mid-West, but the trailer is a bit on the showy side, I think. I'm all for offering a glimpse of a money-shot or two, but even a lazy eye could piece together the majority of the film from these 2 minutes and 29 seconds.

But for those of us who have seen Romero's The Crazies, or for those who just don't care about out-of-context spoilers, click over to Apple for HD varieties or scroll on down for a glossy embed and then let us know what you think of the Hollywood upscale Eisner and The Machinist screenwriter Scott Kosar have given the material.

Yes, The Fly is getting remade again. No, it's not necessary. Yes, I have never been more interested in a remake in my life. Why? Because David Cronenberg is the best director still walking this Earth and making movies. The Fly is the second best horror film of all time. These are facts. They are not malleable, they are carved in unobtanium and frozen in carbonite.

Okay, so maybe that's a little bit of hyperbole, but it goes to show just how highly I regard the filmmaker and that particular film. So if he wants to return to a film he made in 1986 in 2009 and remake it, I say bring it on. It could be a Michael Haneke'esque shot-for-shot remake of the original Jeff Goldblum, Gena Davis awesomeness, and I'd be okay with it. Because it's David Freaking Cronenberg and The Freaking Fly reunited once again (in something that isn't a stage musical).

Now the bad news is that David Cronenberg will be working with 20th Century Fox on the picture. Things have changed just a tad in the 23 years since Cronenberg first brought The Fly to the studio. Fox has garnered a reputation in the last few years of being particularly restrictive of directorial vision (both Matthew Vaughn walking off of X-Men 3 and all of the overrides Alex Proyas received during the production of I, Robot comes to mind), so the only thing that could possibly make me lose interest in the project would be if Cronenberg gets shoved aside in order to serve some higher studio agenda.

Admittedly the news that Paramount has abandoned their remake of Paranormal Activity in favor of releasing an original film for a change is interesting news, but within the same Variety profile of Steven Schneider (one of their "10 Producers to Watch") baring that particular revelation is even cooler news. Oddly enough what has me all a flutter is not even buried deep within the article, it's in the opening sentence, "With "Paranormal Activity" readying to open via Paramount and a raft of projects poised at other venues -- including "The Colony" at Participant, "Sacred Prey" at Warner Bros. and "13: Game of Death" at Dimension -- Steven Schneider may become the dark genre's warlock of choice."

Wait a sec. "13: Game of Death" at Dimension"? Apparently I'm the only one who cares about the accidental announcement that a remake of the coolest genre movie to come out of Thailand in years is no longer just hypothetical. I know the rights to 13:GOD were purchased by the Weinsteins well over a year ago, but such behavior is not out of the norm (buying the remake rights to obscure foreign films is a morning ritual for those two). As expected, there has been zero visible movement towards making the film a reality until now. And considering one of Variety's "10 Producers to Watch For" is involved, I'd say it finally has a fighting chance to see the light of day.

Read the rest over at Cinematical

A couple of us onliners got an up-close look at the fresh flesh of Jackie Earle Haley's Freddy Krueger last month on the Chicago set of the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, and from the sound of things, he'll be making his first public appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con later this week. Though the bulk of our set visit coverage will have to wait until closer to the film's release next April, we can share a bit on what Haley's bringing to the legendary character and what the producers are bringing to the franchise...

Haley: "Robert Englund's done an amazing job over the years playing Freddy. Everybody's that's a fan of Nightmareloves Robert and, you know, that's a challenge when you've got to step in a big man's shoes like that, so it's scary but also exciting. You can't please everybody. All I can do is really just try to work from the heart and do the best job at playing Freddy that I can and hope for the best."